And the old woman agreed to help her to her will. A caldron was prepared and filled with plants; and the king’s son was put into it and stripped to the magic shirt, and the girl was stripped to the waist. And the mother stood by with a great knife, which she gave to her daughter. Then the king’s son was put down in the caldron; and the great serpent, which appeared to be a shirt about his neck, changed into its own form, and sprang on the girl and fastened on her; and she cut away the hold, and the king’s son was freed from the spells. Then they were married, and a golden breast was made for the lady.
‘And then,’ adds Mr. Campbell, ‘they went through more adventures which I do not well remember, and which the old tinker’s son vainly strove to repeat in August 1860, for he is far behind his father in the telling of old Highland tales. The serpent, then, would seem to be an emblem of evil and wisdom in Celtic popular mythology.’
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[1] A passage in ‘The King of Erin and the Queen of the Lonesome Island’ (Curtin’s Myths and Folk-lore of Ireland, p. 98) offers a curious parallel:—‘They fought an awful battle that day from sunrise to sunset. They made soft places hard, and hard places soft; they made high places low, and low places high; they brought water out of the centre of hard grey rocks, and made dry rushes soft in the most distant parts of Erin till sunset.’ [↑]
[2] Of course, £1 notes in Scotland. [↑]
[3] In the Welsh-Gypsy story Ashypelt gets no whisky, also no Bible. [↑]
[6] ‘This word,’ says Campbell, ‘I have never met before.’ [↑]